IN Part 5 of the series we enumerated some of the issues that emerged for ResultsManager users with the new ways that MindManager 9 handles task dates. One of the main issues (which I didn't recognize at that time) was that the way duration is now handled in MindManager was causing ResultsManager to add due dates (= start date) to tasks with a start date but no end date. Gyronix has addressed that with a new version 2.9.2/1 available today. I have tested this version for a few weeks and all seems to be well. MindReader has been modified so that it can successfully change start and due dates without changing the other. You need to download the latest beta version of the MindReader Setup if you are using v9 to get start date keywords to work correctly. You also want to run through the MindManager setup tips to make sure you do things like add weekend days to your calendar.

The main residual annoyance with v9 at this point is that once you add a start and due date to a task, you need to manually remove the date information if you want to go back to the point of not having a due date. The "ndd" mindreader keyword will not do it nor will the ResultsManager "edit activity" dialog. So I guess this means you need to finish your task instead of removing the due dates :-).

For my purposes I'm going to mark my project map done and archive it and close the 6 part series. The remaining issues are still summarized on the wiki. I have seen occasional "untagged items in your queue" messages associated with the latest version of GyroQ released with version 9 that I still need to track down in terms of root cause. Let me know if you are running into this.

Erik said,

Strange problem more than likely unique to me. I run Windows 7 (64 bit) in VMware Fusion on a Mac. The "My Maps" folder is shared from the Mac. I have installed MindManger and ResultsManager with no issues but I can installed MindReader. When running setup159 the drives mapped to the Mac show up but can't be expanded. I get "Location unavailable.." although I can browse the drives from an explorer window. I have some drives mapped to a file server also but they do not show up in the list at all during install. Looks like the installed will not accept non-local drives?

Hi Erik — The key things the installer does is drop the mmbas files and mindreaderconfig.mmap into a "My Maps\AO" directory and the gyroq.ini file into "My Maps\GyroQ". If you can get the installer to put the files anywhere, you can then move them into those locations, and things should work.

Thanks for this interesting series of articles. You mentioned the "untagged items in your queue" error message with MM9, I'm getting this error message everytime I use GyroQ. It doesn't seem to affect anything, all my items in the queue transfer to MM. GyroQ will still show that I have items in the queue though after the transfer. I normally do a manual purge of the queue after transferring to MM.

BTW, before Christmas I had asked for some help with Outlinker and MM9, and your reply got me running again (downloading the latest version of Outlinker fixed the problem).

Erik said,

Something is strange with recurring items: I have a task that due each month, the start date for February is 1/27/2011 and the due date is 2/4/2011, category is eachmonth. When I mark it complete (d) today it sets the new start date to 2/27/2011 correctly but the due date is set to 4/4/2011 where I expected 3/4/2011.

Hi Erik — Thank you. That is a very good catch. I was so focused on dealing with issues with setting start date in mindreader that I forgot that mark-task-complete also deals with start dates when resetting repeating tasks. I have uploaded a new setup160.exe beta that deals with this and also put new source code in the wiki.

Charles Knickerbocker said,

Just came across your site. Thanks for all the good work you're doing.

Quick questions:

I'm currently running MM Pro 7 on MBPro using VMWare Fusion and XP SP3. Your post here is an example of why I haven't upgraded to MM 9. Most of the comments I saw when 9 came out were about how unhappy people where with it and felt it was a revenue upgrade rather than a function upgrade. Is it your estimation that this is still valid?

And… Map2Excel looks great and I'll download it. However, I'm looking for a way to import database info into MindManager. I know of creating "outlines" in Excel and Word to import but that seems impractical when there is the need to attach documents and links to a topic as well as populating the content of a topic from multiple data fields.

Hi Charles — Existing power users are always a tough crowd for Mindjet to please. If some had their way, I think we might still be back in X5 :-). Mindjet naturally seeks to extend its user base with features they think will win new customers over. MM9 seems to be catering to those potential bulk corporate customers who hope for MSProject-lite.

In order to force fit to that objective, the handling of task dates is very poor in MM9. It insists on a fixed (due-start) duration once you set both a start and and end date, and the dates move around unexpectedly as you move the other in order to keep the original duration calculated.

If you forget to set the calendar to 7 days, and you have a MM8 map with a task with a start and end on Saturday, you end up with a due date on Friday and a start date on the following Monday.

MM9.2 has some outlook syncing issues that look like they will be addressed with a patch.

If you are a ResultsManager user, things get even worse, as strange things happen when suddenly you have full length durations on certain activities. For example, if you routinely set a start date and end date on a project to track when it started and will end, then all tasks feeding into it will be overdue as RM thinks that you need to fully complete the predecessor tasks in order to stay on schedule.

Aside from those issues, MM9 feels more robust and snappy to me. Knock on wood I haven't seen some of the memory-driven crashes and errors that can arise if you have huge dashboards in MM7. I would recommend you move up to at least 8.2.

I upgraded at home a month ago as I felt I needed to stay current with blog readers, who tend to be early adopters. At work I'm still working with 8.2 and don't feel I'm missing much there.

Generically bringing database information into MindManager is difficult. If you have a very specific and fixed application, you can likely find a programmer who could program the interface for you as the object model is very open.

Welcome to ActivityOwner.Com

I have been personal and corporate user of ResultsManager since March 2005. This site is my way of trying contribute something back to the internet community as well as to to organize my understanding of GTD and management. The MindReader, Outlinker, Mark Task Complete, Next Action Analysis, and Map2Excel add-ins are worth a look and can be installed by downloading setup programs.